This Time
by bad-wolf-bay
Summary: Same place, same people, but this time was not how it was supposed to be.


'The last time I stood on this beach on the worst day of my life, what was the last thing you said to me?'

'I said Rose Tyler.'

'And!? How was that sentence going to end?'

Last time tears were falling freely down her pale face, last time the wind lashed at her hair, last time he would have fought everything, last time there was no time.

This time her eyes pleaded, stubborn and still waiting. This time, Time was allowing them this – their second chance, their hearts on the line. This time she refused to cry, breaking his hearts just that little bit; she was no longer the little girl turned woman who bled her heart to him on this beach over 2 years prior. No, this was the woman who was more like him than they cared to admit, this was the woman who wanted answers, who knew deep down that this was it this time, for real, the end of the line. Nothing was to be left hanging this time.

'Does it have to be said?'

He had tried so many times, holding her hand in the cellar in Cardiff 1869, New Earth complete with foxy Cassandra, and the pit of Hell forever believing. He has always assumed, knew that she knew despite after everything he had done; sending her home for the first time, regenerating on her, having a previous companion shoved in her face, abandoning her in the 51st Century with no way home. Yet he still assumed.

'_Am I ever gonna see you again?'_

'_You can't.'_

'_I – I love you.'_

The man who was to take his place bent to whisper in her ear; the same ear he had flicked to annoy her when she was concentrating, the ear she played with when she was nervous, the ear she consciously turned off when being lectured, the ear she had accidently got pierced so it made her hair light up like a disco ball much to Jack's amusement, but not Jackie's. With those 3 words his world fell apart, the 3 words a Lord of Time was not allowed to feel, the 3 words he had assumed but never questioned. With those 3 words the Time Lord would give her his hearts and soul, the whole of Time and Space, and Forever. With his one heart and one life, the human was giving her everything Time would not but its Lord craved. To see her smile everyday brightening the sky; to hold her hand, to feel a ring on that one finger she had played with after Sarah-Jane, innocent smiles and excited eyes to match theirs, of children filling the empty corridors, squeals of his dead language echoing all of Time.

Sighing, he sniffed back tears as she kissed the wrong him hard, her soft petal lips on his, and turned away. She had him, the wrong him that was still him in every way except the part she loved the most. That him would remember every detail of every encounter, touch, hug and adventure without ever having lived them – to feel the adrenaline running through her blood, feel it pumping through the hand clutched in his as they ran, always running, always smiling, almost always winning.

He turned back one last time, one tear falling as he watched her, willing her to love and truly accept and believe he would always be with her, physically as the wrong him, but on the higher plane on existence she had once felt and known, that would feel and keep the trace of their bond that would always tie him to her across the worlds.

Jackie looked at him telling him everything with just one look. Thank you.

He could see the pain and forgiven bitterness of the hell they'd had to call the last 2 years, the endless nights of tears and tantrums from both Tyler women. The timeless weeks and months building and hoping to cross dimensions – just to see him. The suffering of fitting in, accepting their fate and hating it. The anger of a lost life and love, of life being the same yet utterly alien. The joy and tears of a new life born to a world of hope that had died many years before, but was now being relived. The struggle of readjusting to the normal domesticated everyday life she had once thrown to the wind, but was now forced to live out, back on the slow path with everyone else.

The last thing he saw was the life he could only dream off, the hero saved the world and got the girl, just how it was meant to end, with a white wedding and happily ever after. One heart, his left, panged as it remembered another life John Smith had to loose, as another tear fell as history repeated itself in more way than one. Closing the doors, he left that heart behind; it would never beat or bleed, it couldn't make the wrong him into Him, but stayed it did to watch over the fantastic life he could never have, but the one his Rose Tyler would have with him by her side. Forever.


End file.
